Mario Serrano Puche - The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Mario Serrano Puche / mserranopuche@gmail.com / +44 782 632 7582

Mario Serrano Puche

Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Mario Serrano Puche / mserranopuche@gmail.com / +44 782 632 7582

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Mario Serrano Puche / mserranopuche@gmail.com / +44 782 632 7582

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Mario Serrano Puche / mserranopuche@gmail.com / +44 782 632 7582

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Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Master of Architecture

IIT

Bachelor of Architecture

Hanyang University

Study Abroad Programme

London, UK, 2019 - September 2020

Chicago, IL, 2013-2018

Seoul, South Korea 2014

Full-time Positions

SO-IL

New York, NY, 2018-2019

PLP

Internships / Part-time Positions

SANAA Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa Tokyo/Chicago, Fall 2017

Bogotá, Colombia, Summer 2016

London, UK, October 2020 - present

El Equipo Mazzanti

The Bartlett

Chicago, IL, Summer 2018

Chicago, IL, 2017-2018

with a specialization in digital design. Magna Cum Laude

Professional Experience

Architectural Design. RC4

London, UK, Fall 2020

Lead Designer. Project designer for concept and schematic design phases for two private residences and two architectural competition submissions.

Part 2 Architectural Assistant. university in China.

Architectural Intern. Part of the team designing the concept for Chicago’s south-side masterplan and installation at the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Architectural Intern. Worked on two competitions: a center for Los Andes university and a large funerary complex which is currently under construction.

Workshop Tutor.

Taught an introductory workshop for BPro students focused on computational aggregations and AR tools.

Wrightwood 659

Exhibition Designer.

Bauer Latoza Studio

Architectural Intern. Generated drawings to aid design proposals and developed construction document sets for planning and preservation projects.

MCHAP Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize Chicago, IL, Spring 2018

Treviso, Italy, Summer 2017

Chicago, IL, Spring 2017

Fabrica

Designer and fabricator for exhibition showcasing pieces related to Tadao Ando’s work in the Chicago gallery designed by Ando himself.

Collaborator. Part of the student committee preselecting and presenting candidate projects to the jury of the prestigious architecture prize.

Design Fellow.

Worked with a team of product designers researching customerproduct interactions to create concepts for new forms of exhibition spaces.

MANA Contemporary

Exhibition Curator.

IIT Academic Research Center

Architecture Tutor.

AIAS

Student Representative.

Italia Innovation

Chicago, IL, 2016-2017

American Institute of Architecture Students

Chicago, IL, 2015-2016

Venice, Italy, Summer 2015

Invited to Present

Anfa Urbanization and Development Agency Casablanca, Morocco, in progress

Burning Man

Project Casa Anfa, Casablanca Schiff Foundation Fellowship

Art Institute of Chicago Chicago, IL, May 2018

American Institute of Architects Chicago, IL, May 2017

Presented and discussed award-winning documentary.

Proposal Selected for Phase 2 Submission

Competition for art installations to be built at Burning Man 2020.

Proposal Selected for Phase 2 Submission

Competition for a development on the site of the former airport of Anfa in Casablanca.

Finalist

Thesis project nominated by IIT for the prestigious research fellowship.

Finalist

Dwight T. Black Memorial Scholarship

Awarded

Leadership Academy Scholarship

Awarded Full Tuition Scholarship

IIT College of Architecture Chicago, IL, May 2017

IIT Center for Leadership Studies Chicago, IL, May 2016

Gaetano Marzotto Award

IIT International Scholarship

Short documentary presenting a line of research developed with a colleague on sustainable and progressive building typologies.

AIA Chicago Award

Design Researcher. Worked with Palazzo Grassi, leading contemporary art institution in Venice to re-imagine how people can interact with art through VR.

Chicago Ideas Week

Black Rock Desert, NV, in progress

Presenting proposals to better architectural education while representing IIT students as part of the national organization.

People’s Choice Award

Aided architecture students and developed research on topics related to structural and mechanical systems design.

AIA Film Challenge

American Institute of Architects USA, September 2019 Chicago, IL, September 2019

Curated an exhibition exploring the nature of drawings in architecture at the contemporary art space.

Awards / Recognition

Working towards submitting a proposal for a

Mario Serrano Puche / mserranopuche@gmail.com / +44 782 632 7582

Education

Associazione Progetto Marzotto Milan, Italy, July 2015 Illinois Institute of Technology

Chicago, IL, 2013

IIT studio project nominated for the city-wide award.

Most outstanding IIT fourth year studio project. Jury chaired by Columbia GSAPP’s Enrique Walker.

Granted every year to a handful of IIT students with high leadership potential and who have contributed to the IIT community through social work and involvement.

Most Outstanding Italia Innovation Project

Given the opportunity to pitch at the final event of highly prestigious Premio Gaetano Marzotto in Milan.

Awarded Half Tuition Scholarship

Granted to international students based on academic achievement.

Skills

softwares: 3ds Max, Adobe CS(Ai, Ps, Id, Pr, Ae), AutoCad, C#(basic), Enscape, Grasshopper, Maya, Rhino, Unity, VRay, ZBrush

hands-on: 3D Printing, Casted Materials, CNC, Laser Cutting, Woodworking

languages: English, Spanish

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Mario Serrano Puche / mserranopuche@gmail.com / +44 782 632 7582

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Part 01: M.Arch, Bartlett School of Architecture UCL

01: Waldo: Automated Farming Village - Research Cluster 4

Part 02: B.Arch, IIT

02: Urban Tower

03: Carbon Fiber Pavilion

04: Urban Library

05: Nested Mountains

- Awarded Dwight T. Black Memorial Scholarship (Most Outstanding IIT 4th year studio project)

- IIT Project Nominated for AIA Chicago Award 2017

- IIT Project Nominated for Art Institute of Chicago’s Schiff Foundation Fellowship 2018

Part 03: Competition Entries

06: Cybervernacular

07: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives

08: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives (Documentary)

09: Harmony of Spheres

- Submission for Superscape 2020

- Submission to Home Competition 2019

- Awarded People’s Choice Award AIA Film Challenge 2019

Mario Serrano Puche / mserranopuche@gmail.com / +44 782 632 7582

Index

- Selected for phase 2, Burning Man 2020

Part 04: Professional Work SANAA

11: Chicago Architecture Biennial

Wrightwood 659 12: Topographic Model

El Equipo Mazzanti 13: Urban Campus

MANA Contemporary 14: Mirror, Mirror

SO-IL

15: Art Gallery

16: Pedestrian Road

17: Private Residence

18: Private Residence

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MArch UCL Bartlett

project: Autonomous Farming Village

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Research Cluster 4, Tutors: Gilles Retsin, Manuel Jimenez-Garcia, Kevin Saey, Sonia Magdziarz Collaboration with Alexandr Lala, Yuan Shih, Jier Zhou Research Cluster Brief:

Automation is reconfiguring almost every aspect of our daily life. The gap between the cost of labour and the cost of robotics is increasingly widening, resulting in more and more accelerated demand for automation. The deregulation of the finance sector and crippling of labour unions from the 1970s onwards has resulted in an increasing compensation gap between net productivity of companies and the compensation for labour. While we produce ever more efficiently, wages have not radically improved.

The financial crisis of 2008 exposed this widening inequality even further, resulting in a large precariat and political polarisation in ever-expanding new rustbelts. The agenda of this research cluster is to develop platforms for Automated Living which increase access to high-quality housing, developing everyday automated workflows, set in the immediate here-and-now, which allow radical new spatial and aesthetic agendas. At the same time, exploring new narratives for work life and domesticity in a fully automated world. Life with autonomous entities, robots and AI’s is put in question.

project: Autonomous Farming Village

Waldo: Automated Farming Village MArch UCL Bartlett

Project Brief:

As Rem Koolhaas expresses, ‘the cuteness of the city is generated at the expense of the countryside, by organizing it in a highly structured manner’ (00:30:15). This dichotomy is challenged with a reality where humans are becoming ‘prosumers’, as argued by Jose Sanchez. This project takes on the task of presenting a model for establishing an architectural feedback between local-food-production infrastructures, as the most prominent prosumer-culture resulting typologies, and spaces of living.

The context for this proposal is one where the southern European countryside is being abandoned due to the lack of opportunities in the rural. Farming is shifting from local specialized production to large scale automated farming, resulting in widely generic products that lack quality and authenticity. A current shift of paradigm has turned contemporary society’s eyes back to the rural, where innovative architectural explorations are taking place, and new activities such as agro-tourism are shaping new typologies. In parallel, the European Union has the conviction to protect the European countryside as a key part of Europe’s heritage.

The project strives to create a platform that offers automated infrastructure for development in rural areas through accessible housing and innovative farming. The goals are: 1. To reinvigorate low populated rural areas ( or abandoned villages) by introducing new opportunities for both new and existing inhabitants. 2. The reintroduction of the rural lifestyle through the scope of leisure and independence on location. 3. To redefine vernacular architecture in the context of automation. The proposal is to create a robot-based automated construction system of carving in the ground, casting, and lifting the cast components out of the ground to assemble them into inhabitable spaces. The cast architectural components have varying functions and shapes that allow for a self-supporting system, and the resulting landscape is re-purposed to provide highly efficient farming conditions. The resulting structures house living, community and farming spaces, becoming hubs for farming innovations and highly desirable vernacular living spaces that have the potential to introduce new life to dying rural villages.

The means of architectural production are additive (3D printing) and subtractive (ground excavating) toolpaths. The 3D prints act as elements that adapt to the geometric imprecision of the cast-in-the-ground components, lofting between them to allow for enclosures. The design process has a strong computational component, from generating component catalogues from pre-defined spacedefining surfaces that represent a programmatic organization, to flattening the generated component catalogue and organizing it in the field-to-be-excavated in a way that minimizes space usage. The component-generating computational tool prioritizes multi-axial components in order to allow for selfsupporting structures to be produced. Excavation toolpaths are generated based on the ground patterns, these toolpaths inform an automated excavation process where drones survey the land and communicate with excavators, concrete-pourers and component-lifters in order to create an automated synchrony.

MArch UCL Bartlett 10

MArch UCL Bartlett

project: Autonomous Farming Village

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project: Autonomous Farming Village

MArch UCL Bartlett

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project: Autonomous Farming Village

MArch UCL Bartlett Prior to casting concrete in the excavated holes, the 3D prints, which have varying functionalities, and a plastic film are introduced in the hole. This happens after the hole has been scanned by a drone to determine that its precission is sufficient.

project: Autonomous Farming Village

The architectural production process is based on toolpaths: automated excavators follow subtractive toolpaths that carve holes for the casting, and additive toolpaths inform the 3d printing of elements to make the components inhabitable. Scanning drones are used in both processes to deal with imprecisions in the holes and cast components, respectively.Â

update loop

automated excavator

hole-scanning drone

concrete-casting hole

3D printing robot arm

update loop

component-scanning drone

cast components

MArch UCL Bartlett

component-lofting 3D prints

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MArch UCL Bartlett

project: Autonomous Farming Village

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project: Autonomous Farming Village

The 3D prints create an interconnected network that not only facilitates the bringing together of the components but also supplies water and electricity.

MArch UCL Bartlett 16

MArch UCL Bartlett

project: Autonomous Farming Village

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project: Autonomous Farming Village

The construction of the village takes place in a series of phases. First farming infrastructure is introduced and abandoned village buildings are repurposed for food-specialists to move in. Once the existing village buildings are all occupied, new residential infrastructure is built and as parts of the landscape get rewildened, agrotourists are welcome. Finally once community infrastructure for locals, food-specialists and agrotourists to share is built.

PHASE 1 Farming Infrastructure

PHASE 2 Residential Infrastructure

MArch UCL Bartlett

PHASE 3 Leisure Infrastructure

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project: Autonomous Farming Village

MArch UCL Bartlett

The concrete components are generated through a point culling process. Stroke clusters, which are representative of excavator toolpaths and respond to excavation constraints, are introduced in the site as toolpath representations of the concrete components. The culling process starts with a point cloud that approximates the aggregation volume; a first stroke-cluster culls the points within its bounds, then a second cluster, a third cluster, and so one. This process assures that the generated components fit together. A denser point cloud results in higher precision.Â

project: Autonomous Farming Village

MArch UCL Bartlett

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MArch UCL Bartlett

project: Autonomous Farming Village

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project: Autonomous Farming Village

MArch UCL Bartlett

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MArch UCL Bartlett

project: Autonomous Farming Village

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project: Autonomous Farming Village

MArch UCL Bartlett

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BArch IIT COA

project: Urban Tower

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4th year studio, Professor: Andrew Tinucci Awarded Dwight T. Black Memorial Scholarship (Most Outstanding IIT 4th year studio project) The project is a 7,000 person capacity music venue with 330 residential apartment units. The music venue occupies the void created by the stacking of apartment units, which comprise the venue’s wall and ceiling. The stacking is driven by the need for natural light and clear circulation, which then creates the opportunity for units to have access to exterior terraces. Circulation spaces are used as a sound buffer between the venue and residences, with their offset complementing a third element: the public plaza. The structure and organization is conceived as 14 parallel cross-laminated timber walls that extend through the entire north/south axis of the building. These walls both organize programmatic elements and help users understand the building’s structure as walls that serve as both interior partitions and external façades. The building form is driven by the site’s relationship to the Chicago River and Chicago Avenue. The units step back along the river, facilitating views and exposure to northern light. In contrast, the building takes a more traditional form along Chicago Avenue, with residential, music venue, and support components integrated within the facade.

project: Urban Tower

Urban Tower BArch IIT COA

BArch IIT COA 26

BArch IIT COA

project: Urban Tower

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project: Urban Tower

BArch IIT COA

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BArch IIT COA

project: Carbon Fiber Pavilion

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3rd year studio, Professor: Alfonso Peluso

The design goal is the creation of an exterior space that intends to showcase the capacities of the material and allows for a more intimate space within the an open field. After developing several digital and physical prototypes, a final design, driven by structural soundness and most efficient use of material is chosen. The team of four students are in charge of making molds for the panels, laying out the carbon fiber, cutting the edges of the panels using CNC machines, assembling the pavilion together, and anchoring it on site. It is a collective effort where all individuals contribute in all of the stages of the process.

project: Carbon Fiber Pavilion

Carbon Fiber Pavilion BArch IIT COA

BArch IIT COA 08 30

BArch IIT COA

project: Carbon Fiber Pavilion

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Structure built on-site.

project: Carbon Fiber Pavilion

type D type B

type A

type C

BArch IIT COA

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3rd year studio, Professor: Andrew Schachman The Grid: a visualization of modernity’s faith in rational thought and industrial progress. It reflects standardization and mass production. Modern cities do not respond to unique functions, features of the landscape, or social information, they are designed on a fixed gridded field that allows for easy navigation via mapped coordinates. The purpose of this thread of work is to rethink the city grid in order for it to reflect information that currently affects the city experience. The goal is to create unique moments that attract people and allow for open spaces that are more accommodating to the pedestrian. The city becomes more livable and interesting.

project: Urban Park

Urban Park BArch IIT COA

BArch IIT COA 34

BArch IIT COA

project: Urban Library

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4th year studio, Professor: Donna Robertson IIT project nominated for AIA Chicago Award 2017 This fourth year B-Arch Studio, with a focus in comprehensive building design, presents the Obama Presidential Library as a design challenge that engages the student in the urban scale and the complexity of building systems. The brief asks the students to develop a schematic plan for the entire Obama Presidential Complex located in South Side Chicago, and to develop further the building design for the library that is to exist in this complex. The scheme was founded in the idea of creating an image that is a representation of the presidency. The project consists of three buildings, the Museum, the Foundation, and the Library. The Museum is treated as the gateway into the complex, it stands on the northernmost part of the site, the main point of access. It represents the image of the presidency. The Foundation stands in the middle of the site, the section closest to the Jackson Park Lagoon. It reaches visually and physically to the park with a tower and a bridge, and represents the outer life of the presidency. The Library, the building this project develops on, stands on the southernmost part of the site, where it is closest to Woodlawn’s community. It represents the inner life of the presidency and intends to create a relationship between the scholars and the neighbourhood.

The library is to be experienced as a monument composed of two types of image: a beacon that holds the academia, contrasted by a more intimate composition that embraces the community. The project is accessed through a surface that is shaped by the program below it and activated by visitors.

The beacon opens up to this surface, creating a conversation between the scholars and the city.

project: Urban Library

Urban Library BArch IIT COA

BArch IIT COA 36

BArch IIT COA

project: Urban Library

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project: Urban Library

BArch IIT COA

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BArch IIT COA

project: Nested Mountains

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5th year studio thesis project, Professor: Lluis Ortega IIT project nominated for Schiff Foundation Fellowship 2018, Art Institute of Chicago Collaboration with Mohammad Kassem and David Walczyk

The idea of home has been traditionally related to belonging and stability. The hyper accelerated mobility of current modes of living of new generations is challenging those notions. In this fifth year B-Arch studio, students develop a proto-city that deals with an interiorized urban context hosting a mix of inhabiting infrastructure and common spaces. Students develop robust architectural systems that go through transformations when deployed on site. This investigation focuses on systems for deploying inhabitable structures in relationship to new concepts of ownership set against landscapes generated from subdivisions as a forms of interiority. The Modernist model for housing is dependant on repetitive modular design models that create limitless systems. Structures are reduced to monoliths in a field that generates sameness in its deployment. The monoliths provide efficient circulation and structural soundness, but in doing so they homogenize the experience of inhabiting the system, treating each individual equivalently.

The repetition of stacked units dictates conditions of planar individuality, where families exercise their independence by claiming some form of ownership over a spatial unit, but their agency is contained within the confines of their unit. As a response to the existing homogeneity, the interest of this study lies in the degrees of interiority that can exist at the local (or unit) scale, and threshold arrangements defined by the larger building form. This stems from the need to update existing techniques of building inhabitable structures since they limit the extent of possible architectural experiences. The landscape generated by the terrace + loft system is traversed by travellers that never settle permanently. For different lengths of time, hikers find shelter in pockets and nooks formed by a combination of vertical divisions (walls of different heights and orientations) and horizontal platforms (floors shifted to create local topographical differences). Making no distinction between circulation and settlement, the continuous surface accommodates the various needs and preferences of users without segregating them. This charges the architectonic elements themselves with the same dynamism that - in an urban setting - relies on program and typology.

project: Nested Mountains

Nested Mountains BArch IIT COA

BArch IIT COA 40

BArch IIT COA

project: Nested Mountains

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project: Nested Mountains

BArch IIT COA

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BArch IIT COA

project: Nested Mountains

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project: Nested Mountains

BArch IIT COA

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BArch IIT COA

project: Nested Mountains

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project: Nested Mountains

BArch IIT COA

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BArch IIT COA

project: Nested Mountains

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project: Nested Mountains

BArch IIT COA

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BArch IIT COA

project: Nested Mountains

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project: Nested Mountains

BArch IIT COA

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Index / Architectural Competition Entries

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(personal work) 07: Cybervernacular

- Submission for Superscape 2020

08: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives - Submission for Home Competition 2019

09: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives (Documentary) - Awarded People’s Choice Award AIA Film Challenge 2019

10: Harmony of Spheres

- Selected for phase 2, Burning Man 2020

Index / Architectural Competition Entries

PART 2: Architectural Competition Entries

11: 3D Printed Shoe - Personal project

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Competition Entry

project: CyberVernacular

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Crowd-sourcing the City Through a New-born Vernacular Submission for Superscape 2020 2020, in progress

Competition Entry

This project proposes the construction of our cities through vernacular processes, producing urban environments that are responsive to individuals, communities, and nature. The proposal is informed by an understanding of cybernetics as the formalization of feedback loops, and vernacular architecture as the result of feedback processes between the human and the architecture of the city.

These processes are shaped by the need to respond to specific environmental conditions and human behaviours. Rather than proposing a mixed-used city through pre-defined programmatic relationships, the proposed system is an ever-evolving framework that allows for spaces to programmatically shift based on social and environmental needs. A vernacular system can be implemented in the scale of the contemporary city through automation, resulting in the re-engaging of individuals in the processes of city production. The context that this proposal responds to is a reality of automation, prosumer culture (consumers have become producers), and humans that are augmented through digital tools. The development of a new vernacular city is achieved through the implementation of the cybervernacular model in three different scales: the scale of the natural context (Cybernature), the scale of the community (Cybercommunity), and the scale of the individual (Cyberhuman). A Cybernature is a framework that establishes a feedback between the urban development and the natural context . A Cybercommunity is set up through ‘crowd-sourcing’, where the construction of the city is informed by collecting data through an ‘open source’ architecture. The Cyberhuman is an individual that is digitally augmented in order to engage in direct feedback processes with the architecture of the city.

A recent Curbed article is titled: “Why do all new apartment buildings look the same?”. It brings up an issue present in cities around the world: ‘Nearly every city has seen a proliferation of homogeneous apartments. It boils down to code, costs, and crafts’ (Sisson 2018). This apartment model is not architecturally deterministic, the spatial organization and materiality boil down to purely economic factors. The generic apartment model has no architectural relationship to its inhabitants as a vernacular architecture does. The ‘people’ have lost power over building practices and this is not only evident in the scale of a building, but also in the scale of the urban, where alienation of the human has been a result of a lack of people-engagement in the city-making process. This essay argues for an in-existent cybernetic vernacular from the perspective of re-engaging the urban dwellers in the construction of cities through automation.

The proposal of a cybervernacular city that can be achieved by engaging the urban dweller in its construction is largely based on automation processes. In recent years a strong body of work has been developed by people engaged in architectural academia on the notion of ‘discrete architecture’.

UCL Bartlett’s Gilles Retsin, who has largely pioneered this research, describes this architecture as made up of elements ‘that are as scalable, accessible and versatile as digital data’ (2019). An architecture made up of equal parts can be more easily assembled through automated construction, and allows to democratize production and increase access. In the cybervernacular, a discrete architecture becomes the basis of the parts that make up the city. By employing ‘discreteness’, we can define how digital tools shape the city through cybernatures, cybercommunities, and cyberhumans.

Cybercommunities are the result of a feedback between urban communities and the architecture of the city. Essential to a vernacular architecture is the concept that vernacular processes are ‘open source knowledge’. José Sánchez presents his Plethora project which argues for ‘Architectures for the Commons’, ‘the construction of a design framework that emphasizes the open source cooperation of architects with a community at large, utilizing socially enabled technology to accelerate the proliferation of value for multitudes’ (Sánchez n.d., para. 8). Crowd-sourced urbanism has been further explored through video games such as Block’hood, where the player envisions neighbourhoods while maintaining an ecological balance, as each block placed consumes natural resources. As Sánchez (2017) puts it, ‘we have entered an era of prosumer culture, where consumers have become producers’ (p.18). A cybervernacular city allows for a platform where urban dwellers can collaborate to generate data that can inform how the discrete parts that make up the city can aggregate.

Cyberhumans are the result of a feedback between the urban dweller and the architecture they inhabit. A cybervernacular allows for the individual to control their relationship to the city through a physical feedback with its architecture. This physical relationship between the cyberhuman and the architecture asks for a constant evolution of a presently functional structure informed by its users.

Bernard Rudofsky (1964) brings up Pantalica, a town that has been carved out of the declivities of the Anapo Valley in Sicily, where the individual has the capacity to carve openings to control exterior and interior connections and shape the earth to define household bounds. This process becomes again a possibility by augmenting the human through digital tools. Soomeen Hahm (2019) rethinks ‘the role which human, machine, and computer have in construction’ through a ‘design-to-construction work-flow pursued and enabled by augmented humans’ (p. 1). Hahm argues that we are now entering a new era of the ‘Augmented Age’, and her team’s work explores technologies such as VR, motion tracking and 3D depth scanning to empower the human in the construction process. The use of such technologies allow more humanely engaged construction work-flows. In this process, not only is human agency and intuition reintroduced in citymaking, but a work-flow that allows for these processes to be responsive to individuals is re-established.

project: CyberVernacular

CyberVernacular

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Competition Entry

project: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives

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Dwellings as Evolving Flora Submission for Home Competition 2019 Collaboration with Meriem Sakrouhi

Recent social and climatic changes ask for living typologies that are not only sustainable but have the potential to regenerate the environments that they inhabit. Forgetting conventional building methods which seldom complement ecological processes, could be beneficial. Understanding the way that nature builds will lead to more efficient building systems. The proposed housing typology replicates flowering plants’ structural behaviours and systems for water and heat retention. The result is a modular envelope that mimics biological systems through mechanisation to allow for maximum efficiency and playfulness: The envelope‘s cells expand and contract to allow for openings that respond to varying exterior temperatures and create access openings. Mechanical hairs throughout the envelope act as atmospheric water generators.

Structural tubes within each of the envelope’s cells store the water extracted from the air, and supply it throughout the living unit. The exposed skin incorporates photovoltaic cells to fit energy needs. Some of the cell tubes function as electrical outlets, conducting the converted energy towards interior lights and appliances. The envelope cells naturally fit adjacent to each other. This allows for a modular building system that can be intuitively assembled and disassembled by individuals. The cells attach to a porous wire mesh that holds them together. A community of living units starts to function in a similar way as the envelope cells: The units fit together and create openings that allow for outdoor greenery and community spaces.

project: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives

Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives

Competition Entry 56

Competition Entry

project: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives

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project: Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives

Competition Entry

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project: Learning Organisms (Documentary)

Competition Entry

Yutaka Takiura Associate Professor, Pratt Institute New York

Monserrat Domingu Architect, Lugar Mexico City

John Oppermann Executive Director, Earth Day Initiativ New York

N A C

Natalie Gray Environmental Specialist, Omnidian Seattle Jay Changhani Biophilic Design Specialist, Roche Bobois Atlanta

Martin Hunt Senior Sustainability Consultant, Forum for the Future London

Monica Chadha Founder, Civic Projects Chicago

Mar Granados Director of Architecture, NADA New York Allal Sakrouhi Researcher Professor, Institut National d’Amenagement et d’Urbanisme Casablanca

Rafe Alo Emergency New York

uez Comun Patria Nueva

Learning Organisms, Floral Collectives

Short Research Documentary Winner of the AIA Film Challenge 2019 Co-directed and co-produced with Meriem Sakrouhi

This short documentary documents conversations with community leaders and experts in the fields of sustainability, resiliency and community-engaging architecture. The purpose of these series of conversations was to engage different sources of knowledge in the design of a building typology that is not only sustainable and resilient, but can help regenerate the environments that it inhabits. The project is a response to the social and climatic needs of the moment, and the contemporary context of automation and open source architecture.

ve

Natalie Zepeda Architect, Sweet Water Foundation Chicago

project: Learning Organisms (Documentary)

Kunwar Rana LEED Associate Fellow Atlanta

scan to watch documentary

Nick Rokop Coleman Foundation Clinical Associate Professor, IIT Chicago

Mariel Rivera Director of Sustainability, WeWork Latinamerica Mexico City

Bonnie Casamassima Principal, Interwieve People Atlanta

Competition Entry

omar cy Medical Technician, Transcare k

Caryn Mandelbaum Water Program Director Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation Los Angeles

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Competition Entry

project: Harmony of Spheres, Kinetic Balloon Structure

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Selected for phase 2 submission, Burning Man 2020 Submitted as part of Ekphrasis Collective: In collaboration with Marya Kanakis, Tanil Raif and Meriem Sakrouhi In Dali’s work, the desert acts as a backdrop for absurd and imagined dimensions of life. The Harmony of the Spheres is a surrealist installation that can be experienced three dimensionally through reflected realities, and metaphorically kinetic structures by transforming itself through time and space. The invisible structure consists of vertical grids: A transparent nylon string frame that exists in tension with durable chromatic fabric balloons, anchored to the ground for stability by weights, while the top of the structure is braced horizontally. The reflective spheres are fastened to the frame once filled with helium. The thousands of balloons reflect reality in infinite unique ways. Participants can push, play and explore within this floating field. Balloons dimensions will range from 22” diameter in initial state and deflate over time. By the end, the perfect cube will transform to a dreamlike playful mountain.

Within Black Rock City, shape and form of the pavilion change daily through human interaction and natural forces but always remain connected by strings to leave no trace afterwards. Burners are a vital part in making this artwork exist. Gradients in balloon density create openings that invite Burners inside the cube. Once inside, bodies and faces in the mirrored balloons. Through curious exploration, people maneuver through the volume of infinite realities which deform the pure untouched spheres. As burners swim through balloons like water, they encounter a void space in the center for unexpected encounters and discover new realms of consciousness. In Harmony of the Spheres, we intend to communicate a new understanding of reality, space and time beyond the limits of physical constraints and common exposure of materials. Reality is questioned through repetition of visuals, reflection of oneself and ‘real’ states of existence. The ephemeral nature of the spheres changes over time as helium loses its potency, sunlight exposure increases deflation, or over-play deflates each balloon in a matter that creates a visual array of change in relation to time. While the narrative of this pavilion derives from Dali’s paintings, our curiosity lies in the holistic approach to designing an image in unison with the profound desert. From a seemingly beautiful form, we come to know its imperfect state towards the end of the festival. Burners will embrace Harmony of the Spheres as reality and its perfect imperfections.

project: Harmony of Spheres, Kinetic Balloon Structure

Harmony of Spheres, Kinetic Balloon Structure

Competition Entry 62

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project: 3D Printed Shoe

Personal Project Prototype for a TPU printed shoe sole: The porosity pattern reduces material use, minimizes need for print support, improves shoe structurality, and allows for a softer landing when walking.

The form and printed fabric of the shoe are manipulated to allow for a flexible, structurally sound and zero-waste piece. Playing with the printing-layer-heigth results in a porous shoe fabric that retains flexibility even when printing with PLA, a material that usually produces non-flexible results.

The unconventional layer-heigth setting also allows for a much faster print. The form of the shoe minimizes material usage by reducing the need for printing-support-material significantly, while still retaining the shoe’s necessary structural qualities and a desirable degree of printing precision.

The resulting piece is a highly environmentally friendly shoe: the printing process allows for the production of no waste, and it is printed with PLA, a material that is processed from the starch of plants such as corn, sugar cane and sugar beet, and has a short decomposition cycle of under three months in an industrial facility and around six to twelve months in a domestic compost bin. This project calls for a rethinking of conventional fabrication methods, and for open-source production processes that can allow individuals to produce necessary, everyday objects such as shoes in their own homes.

project: 3D Printed Shoe

3D Printed Shoe

Personal Project 64

Index / Professional Work

65

SANAA 12: Chicago Architecture Biennial Wrightwood 659 13: Topographic Model El Equipo Mazzanti 14: Urban Campus

Index / Professional Work

Part 3: Professional Work

MANA Contemporary 15: Mirror, Mirror SO-IL 16: Pedestrian Road 17: Private Residence 18: Private Residence

66

Professional Experience

project: SANAA / Lake 33rd, Bronzeville

67

Lake 33rd, Bronzeville

Collaboration Between SANAA and Four IIT Students for the Chicago Architecture Biennial A proposal of strategic interventions as a series of connectivities between the IIT Mies Campus, the Bronzeville neighbourhood, and the lake-front. The proposal generates a unique identity for the neighbourhood by complementing the modernism that has marked it with forms that act on a global scale. Six mountain-like buildings located in parks, parking areas, and empty lots create a new topography into the flatland of Chicago and perceptually connect the inland part of the city to the lake. Covered in a landscape of trees, the mountains have pathways on their exterior, allowing a procession to the top. Each is located to be clearly visible from its surrounding neighbourhood and the lake, becoming a reference point between the two. We hope this new landscape scenery creates a strong experience with a close impact on the lives of the people that inhabit the neighbourhood. Different mountain types correspond to different programmatic uses.

project: SANAA / Lake 33rd, Bronzeville

SANAA

Professional Experience 68

Professional Experience

project: SANAA / Lake 33rd, Bronzeville

69

project: SANAA / Lake 33rd, Bronzeville

Professional Experience

70

Professional Experience

project: Wrightwood 659 / Topographic Model

71

Topographic Model

Architectural exhibition

at the Tadao Ando designed gallery in Chicago

In charge of design and fabrication of the model pictured under the supervision of director Dan Wittaker photo source: Dezeen

In charge of the fabrication of a 1:100 scale model of a large portion of Naoshima Island containing a series of buildings designed by Tadao Ando.

My role in the model making process included: designing the model plan to make it fit for the exhibition space, producing the digital files for the fabrication of the topography and the buildings located in it, assembling the building models, and designing a system for assembling the topography on site. The exhibition was modelled after a former exhibition created by students from the Ecole Boulle for the Bon Marche in Paris.

project: Wrightwood 659 / Topographic Model

Wrightwood 659

Professional Experience 72

Professional Experience

project: El Equipo Mazzanti / Urban Campus

73

Urban Campus

Competition Entry as Part of El Equipo Mazzanti’s Design Team A design for a civic center for Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia is the outcome of the competition.

The location of the Los Andes’ campus is very special due to its closeness to Bogotá’s historic center.

The university wanted to come closer to the neighbourhood with a civic center connected to its entry and the neighbourhood’s most active area. The building was to hold a diverse program that is significant to both the students and the locals. This includes educational spaces as classrooms and more flexible formats, a library, a theatre, and open public space that can foster a community. The design of a learning environment is also an urban project. The university’s civic enter is an open platform that adapts to the area’s topography creating a series of patios, covered plazas, and green spaces in the form of grades that integrate the city’s urban life and university activities. Three elevated buildings supported by piloti exist above an open platform that transforms itself to adapt to the site’s geography.

The elevated bars to the classrooms and the research and lecture spaces, these have a privilege view of the city and the mountains. Under the platform, the base holds the theater and its program and the library. This light and air for these areas is guaranteed through the patios. This configuration of base, platform, and bars multiplies the number of interactions between locals and students, and comes from the idea that learning happens also in informal spaces such as transition spaces, public areas, and exteriors.

project: El Equipo Mazzanti / Urban Campus

El Equipo Mazzanti

Professional Experience 74

Professional Experience

project: El Equipo Mazzanti / Urban Campus

75

project: El Equipo Mazzanti / Urban Campus

Professional Experience

76

Professional Experience

project: MANA Contemporary / Mirror, Mirror

77

Mirror, Mirror

Architectural Exhibition Co-curated with Melania Grozdanoska, Natalia Struk, Luis Yanez Architecture is an unbroken line of obsessions. A permanent focus on ideas, indifferent to success, failure, and time. Where a single thought is ever just a point, a moment. Our exhibition is a reflection into the discipline’s running themes. By coupling contemporary student works with canonical historical works we interrogate the same obsessions at different moments. The tension in their relationship makes apparent their parallel realities; without each other, neither exists. The link is broken and the line is lost.

Mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all?

project: MANA Contemporary / Mirror, Mirror

MANA Contemporary

Professional Experience 78

Professional Experience

project: MANA Contemporary / Mirror Mirror

79

project: MANA Contemporary / Mirror Mirror

Professional Experience

80

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Wesleyan Art Gallery

81

Wesleyan Art Gallery

Competition Entry for an Art Gallery in Wesleyan University How to introduce the arts to a student population? How can we frame an encounter with an artifact—only a few inches across—in the context of a busy campus? A new gallery space, inserted between existing buildings, offers the opportunity to create a moment of respite in busy campus life. The art gallery introduces the students to insights through encounters and becomes a space that creates room to think and see in a new way. Our design for the Wesleyan Art Gallery is built around a careful framing of this encounter, making the interaction with the rarified collection of works on paper as rich and meaningful as possible. This building is not an extension of the neighboring library, but it creates a destination of its own. We frame the encounter by creating a series of experiential realms and thresholds. Each layer allows a step down in scale. The quiet sanctum of the gallery is a space of exploration, defined by its separation from other environments, sounds and light. Book talks and gallery openings use a space visible to the campus, opening onto the garden in warmer months. The garden defines the next threshold, passing from the shared social area to the intimate space of the gallery itself.

project: SO-IL / Wesleyan Art Gallery

SO-IL

Professional Experience 82

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Pedestrian Road

83

Pedestrian Road: Des Voeux Road Central

Competition Entry for the pedestrianization of Hong Kong’s Des Voeux Road Central Entry consisted of a stop-motion animation Our proposal, Des Voeux Daydream, for the Walk DVRC International Design Competition to imagine a more walkable, pedestrian environment on a 1.4 km stretch of Des Voeux Road Central in the heart of Hong Kong’s Central Business District envisions a series of interconnected rooms that offer wonder, joy and repose in hectic downtown HK library. This light and air for these areas is guaranteed through the patios. This configuration of base, platform, and bars multiplies the number of interactions between locals and students, and comes from the idea that learning happens also in informal spaces such as transition spaces, public areas, and exteriors.

The project takes shape as a mesh that on-goes transformations to create diverse experiences and complementary programmatic capabilities in different parts of Des Voeux Road. A canopy, intended to create intimate spaces, exists in the area where the road becomes tighter. Seating grades create an amphitheater-like space in an intersection where the road has the capacity to hold a greater space for reunion. Folding green walls compliment a moment where the road bends, reinforcing the feeling of continuous discontinuity. A space that provides privacy from the city traffic is created under an existing building passageway that bridges above the road.

A surface treatment that creates piazza-like gathering spaces compliments the busiest part of the road.

project: SO-IL / Pedestrian Road

SO-IL

Professional Experience 84

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Pedestrian Road

85

project: SO-IL / Pedestrian Road

Professional Experience

86

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

87

De Jonge Residence The significant renovation of a 7,000 sf residence located in its own private peninsula in Connecticut’s Atlantic coast. The existing building, a construction from the 70’s, does not present any architectural value yet is structurally very well designed. A timber truss structure supports roofs that change in section throughout the house. The goal is to preserve the existing timber structure while bringing some architectural clarity to an over-complicated staggering plan, and a set of roofs that lack formal logic.

The proposal draws a rectangle around the existing structure as a way of defining a series of exterior courtyards that relate to interior conditions that vary in enclosure. This rectangle is expressed architecturally as a perforated aluminum roof that drapes along the slopes of the existing roofs and starts to define exterior-interiors and interior-exteriors through openings that vary in sizes and have different relationships with the limits of the existing structure. The expansive perforated areas create more conditions of diffused light and protection from the wind in an site that is openly exposed to the weather.

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

SO-IL

Professional Experience 88

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

89

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

Professional Experience

90

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

91

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

Professional Experience

92

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

93

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

Professional Experience

94

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

95

Walther Residence The design of a 3,000 square feet private residence for one man in a 2 acre piece of land in upstate New York. The design challenge becomes how to articulate a residence that is to be primarily one fluid space into a series of spaces that con be perceived as one, but can programmatically and experientially behave as many. The lack of site constraints presents in itself another challenge: How does the house create a specific relationship to an enormous site. The roof and slab are composed of a series of pieces that have changes in elevation and varying relationships with the thermal envelope as to create a diverse set of interior conditions. These conditions form specific relationships with the site views and the ground and vegetation directly adjacent to the structure as to inform different programs within them. The glass envelope is shaped as to blur the boundaries between the interior and exterior. Interior program that needs further enclosure such as: utilities, bathrooms, and fireplaces start to behave as sculptural volumes that provide structural support. The house becomes part of the landscape and the existing landscape is captured into the house.

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

SO-IL

Professional Experience 96

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

97

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

Professional Experience

98

Professional Experience

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

99

project: SO-IL / Private Residence

Professional Experience

100